It was always said that a being must die alone. There was no one who could go on that solitary journey with them. Was that true?
The wind didn’t know.
It sang to the boy as his spirit flew away.
It sang its wind song. And then, when the boy’s body was cold, the wind crumpled over him, wishing it had never learned what time was.
Time was the stopping of the boy’s beating heart.
“Oh, Wind,” he would say, “please don’t cry.”
But for once, the wind wouldn’t listen if the boy said please. The wind could only cry. There was nothing else.
The wind—a courageous, mighty, wondrous being—curled over its boy and wept.
Its heart—did the wind have a heart?—yes, it must. Because the wind’s heart broke.
95
Time passed.
What was time?
Goodbyes passed.
Heartbeats ended.
The wind sheltered the boy’s body from the flames. The Smith fortress burned. The wind protected him, gusting and shoving the fire back as it licked closer. It would not leave the boy while the inferno greedily grabbed for him.
The wind would not let the fire have the boy’s last embrace.
It was the wind’s right to carry the boy north. He would want to be sheltered under the giant hemlock trees, listening to the wind rattling their needles. He would not want to be cremated by the solemn one’s fiery rebellion.
It pushed and it shoved, still pulling itself inward. It hadn’t had enough time to spiral all of itself back to the boy. There were still thin tendrils with the girl and the solange-eyed one. The trickster and his sister. The rocklike one and the innocent one. The solemn one.
The wind lifted itself off the boy’s chest. The solemn one was close.
He struggled, hunched and holding his arm over his cracked ribs. One of his lungs had deflated, punctured by his broken bone.
Then the solemn one straightened and threw off his pain like tossing off a coat. He twisted his hand and spread illusion over himself. The wind had seen him do this before. It was a shifting illusion, so his movements blurred, and his form became almost wind-like.
It was how, with just a sprinkle of illusion, he managed to disappear without truly disappearing.
He wasn’t strong enough to make himself appear as someone else, or to become invisible. He could only smudge and blur his outline.
Yet when he wore this weak illusion, he could cut down a roomful of men without receiving a scratch. They would swing or conjure at the place he was moments before. His illusion made him almost invulnerable. The wind had always thought he was a cunning man to create a strength from what most considered a weakness.
The thin tendril of the wind inched close to him, helping him breathe.
He pulled two long knives from his body armor. The steel of them glinted a hungry red. These knives were like claws. The darting, dashing, slashing kind. The solemn one was expecting a close, brutal, catlike fight.
His heart pounded. It worked quickly, trying to push more air through his blood.
When the solemn one stepped from the shadows to intercept the battle-hardened brother, his pulse rocketed even more.
The wind moaned.
Would the battle-hardened brother kill another man tonight?
